Defense vs. early missile ships. Can't deal with them.

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CaducityX
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Defense vs. early missile ships. Can't deal with them.

Postby CaducityX » Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:17 pm

Hey, been playing plenty of LAN games with friends and haven't made the full step to losing online with you guys yet, but during our many games I've found a nasty trick that my friends are all having trouble beating. When I think about it, I actually have no idea how to counter it myself. Now this is probably nothing new to the experts here, but missile ships with a runner.

Basically, multiple medium to big shipped with mirved nukes and a stripped down scout to run all over the edge of the screen while the missile ships fire, then run. If I'm attacking one of their planets, they cannot retreat either, otherwise I'll win and bomb them to the ground. Aside from the only trick I know of to counter it, do it to me first... how can someone defend vs. launch and run techniques? If possible, can it be stopped with techs that are RP~650 and under? (If it can be done with lesser techs, I'm all ears)

Thanks in advance, I love this game and don't want to scare my friends off, if there's no good counter just let me know and I'll just stop the runners. I guess I could always try it vs. you guys and see how bad you whoop me. =D :lol:

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Cabman
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Postby Cabman » Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:47 am

Yes, that's a basic tactics in early games. Any counters (if any) depend on what tech you got to defend. There's also an interesting thread about battlepods bug , see this

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rewster1
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Postby rewster1 » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:28 am

Caducity... try this. Choose a custom race and pick warlord and +50 defense.
Research ECM jammer and inertial stabilizer, and equip both on your ships.

I don't know about your lan games, but online, often people don't bother with eccm because they also mostly don't bother with ecm jammer and figure neither will their opponent. So at least the first fleet you face is pretty ineffective against the above setup. And if you can demolish the first fleet, you can gain the upper hand in the game.

sennenhund
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Postby sennenhund » Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:17 pm

Not something you would choose in a large galaxy, but...

...in small/medium I am lately playing Transdimensional, i.e. UniAquaTD+1ProdLhw.

Research must haves:
- Battle Pods
- Fighter Bays (yes, you have to skip Reinforced Hull for that and hope for your spies or tech capture during invasion)
- Fusion Beams

I then build 2 to 3 cruisers outfittet as pure carriers, just Battle Pods and 4 or 5 fighter squadrons.

The TD fighters area extremely fast and wreck havoc on enemy ships before they even get to launch their second volley of missiles (your carriers can retreat too, with only a runner staying in combat, though you dont want a ship with a "fighter pilot" leader to retreat).

Astax
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Postby Astax » Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:54 pm

Starting to hate battlepods :(

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Anjin
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Postby Anjin » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:20 pm

Personally I like sennenhund's tactic, although I have to point something out; to use this defense, you'd have to plan on getting blitzed, because even if it's a very early attack coming at you, chances are you've already gotten up to Auto Factories and so made your choice between Fighter Bays and Reinforced Hull.

In Medium to Large galaxies I'd say getting decent Laser Cannons is a solid defense, and here's my reasoning. If you take the tech path below in an Average tech starting universe:

Research Labs 150 RP
Reinforced Hull 80 RP
Auto Factories 150 RP

...et cetera...

Battle Pods 250 RP
Fusion Beam 150 RP
Battle Scanner 250 RP
Space Academy 150 RP

By the above list I mean that at any point after Auto Factories you can split off of your civ-developing techs and grab the four listed battle techs, which combined only cost you 800 RP, and you can fully kit out your Laser Cannons.

A Battleship with fully augmented Point Defense Laser Cannons, Battle Pods and Battle Scanners can shoot down a heck of a lot of missiles, especially if you do some tricky flying so as to get in a few extra shots on the missiles before they hit you. Make them chase you, and try and wait out their missile supply.

If you're on the defense, they'll run out and retreat, and your colony is safe. If you're on the offense, they'll run out of missiles and again have no choice but to run away, leaving their colony to you. Now if they've got a Star Base that makes things more tricky, because this set-up is far from ideal for taking out Star Bases, so if you're going to go offensive, I'd say aim for colonies with no Star Bases.

CaducityX
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Postby CaducityX » Sun Jun 21, 2009 4:33 pm

Thanks, these are all working very well. My friends aren't nearly as mad when I try the missile chesse now.

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Nightbird
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Postby Nightbird » Mon Aug 29, 2011 11:33 am

Hi, first post here.

I faced same problem here playing against a friend. He always use missiles boats with EMG merculites missiles and it pretty much means a frigate can blow up a battleship. Coupled with warp dissapater and there is no escape.

The worst part is that while he tech thoses, he gets the beefy armors and there is no way for us to tech powerful enough beams to blow up his ships in time.

It takes a while to get decent enough point defense weapons and computers to even defend against that, especially in mass combat where hundreds of missiles fly about. Anti-missiles rockets were impossible because automated factory were a must. So we all ended up doing the very same thing, missiles vs missiles.

Now in VDC, his strategy is still the same and was working. I however found out anti-missiles rockets were now possible but that alone does not cut it. ECM jammers does not do the trick either. I am unsure I want to take +50 defense, as it will cripple my economy.

What worked in VDC however:

The Flux barrier shield, It completely negates the merculites missile dmg on your base. This alone was critical in current game. He found out the hard way Smile

The secong thing working is that in VDC, you can actually fit enough point defense to make it worthwhile. I had a Battleship with 150 point defense auto-fire lasers 360 degrees stand up to a fleet of 15 missiles boats. Still not 100% safe if he launch point blank with fast missile racks.

So I see some light at the end of tunnel with VDC, thoses EMG were so far a bane. If you know better ways to defend against theses missiles, let me know.

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Mon Aug 29, 2011 3:23 pm

As long as VDC is concerned antimissile rockets will do. If you consider frigates or even destroyers up to 8 antimissile rockets will be enough to completely negate that threat. Also normal pd beams work well, but you need to have battle scanner and perhaps good computers to make it more effective. Antimissile rockets are good cause you don't need to put battle scanner and they are equally good vs merculate missiles and zeons, which have almost double hp.
Alternatively - put wide area jammer together with inertial stabilizer. You will be jamming up to 80% of missiles.
Last edited by Overlord2 on Sun Nov 27, 2011 5:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Nightbird
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Postby Nightbird » Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:42 pm

Thanks for reply :)

I tought inertial stabiliser only worked vs beams? Or is it different in VDC?

I'll try that in next game but unfortunately, I took other techs than stabilisers and anti-missiles rockets. Flux shield ( saving my life currently ) was same tech as wide area jammer, so I don't have that either. I can't skip warp dissapater either so I guess I'll have to take the early ECM next time.

I was basing myself on Moo2 were theses techs above are mostly useless, we just begun playing VDC.

For this game, best defense so far was EMG missiles of my own but he have the production edge now. I do have battle scanner on my PD battleships, they doing ok for now but lack main fire power. I'll try get a better computer. Against EMG I need a 100% success rate, any single missile hitting one of my ships means it's dead and he does a good job of having plenty of armored decoy missiles in the first weapons slot rows.

I had some success hiding behind my planets ground batteries too when defending. I'll let you know how things work out but I'm losing so far. :wink:

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 5:16 am

Thanks for reply :)

I tought inertial stabiliser only worked vs beams? Or is it different in VDC?
No, it's not different in VDC. Check out my topic on missile evasion ability - viewtopic.php?t=1481

I was basing myself on Moo2 were theses techs above are mostly useless, we just begun playing VDC.

For this game, best defense so far was EMG missiles of my own but he have the production edge now. I do have battle scanner on my PD battleships, they doing ok for now but lack main fire power. I'll try get a better computer. Against EMG I need a 100% success rate, any single missile hitting one of my ships means it's dead and he does a good job of having plenty of armored decoy missiles in the first weapons slot rows.
Fusions or massdrivers should be better than lasers. On max level of miniaturization they take only 2 space per beam. Carry out an experiment in single reproducing game situation and see how many pd beams you need to put on each ship to negate opponents ships fire power....Also keep in mind the fact if you increase your defensive firepower too much it means you will be lacking offensive firepower on your ships :)

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Nightbird
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Postby Nightbird » Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:35 am

Against torpedoes, is it the same numbers as in your link or it's really only jammers?

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:09 pm

Against torpedoes, is it the same numbers as in your link or it's really only jammers?
Torpedoes are jammed the same way as missiles (same formula) if that was your question.

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Nightbird
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Postby Nightbird » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:02 am

Yes, that was it. Thank you.

For the game, I am about to lose, but we are almost at doom star stage. I was able to stave off thoses missiles with PD and thereafter class 26 shields ( he had a nasty surprise when I caught an entire fleet offguard ) but then he came back with plasma torpedoes + top engines. So none of my shields, planetary or ship based, can stand to theses torps and I have not enough jamming to do anything.

I underestimated theses torps in VDC... 400 dmg... env. ( that does 1600 dmg ) Is it not a bit over the top? Anyways, I keep fighting, I still have fully miniaturised gauss canons but it's doubtfull I can do anything since he outproduce me. Next 2 battles will be decisive. I'll keep you posted

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:43 am

Well, as for the ships there are enough things, which can protect from torpedoes. For instance, Lightning Field is back again, which stops up to 70% of them. [Edit: up to 70% when you shoot them one by one]. What is most important with torpedoes, there is a lag between launching torpedoes and time when they actually inflict damage, compared to beams, which do the damage immediately, torpedoes by no means are overpowered. When speaking of planet defense, torpedoes do only half damage to planets, taking into account Planetary Barrier Shield, damage won't be very high.
Last edited by Overlord2 on Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:05 am, edited 2 times in total.


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